Cuba’s Children of Power Take Possession / Juan Juan Almeida

Perla Rosa Rosales Aguirreurreta, newly appointed Havana Historian

Juan Juan Almeida, 13 March 2017 — The appointment of architect Perla Rosa Rosales Aguirreurreta to succeed historian Eusebio Leal as head of Havana’s Office of the Historian is the most recent example of the Cuban regime’s making strategic decisions whose sole purpose is to implement a very well-organized dynastic succession plan.

In order to further strengthen their hold on every corner of the country, family members of high-ranking military officials and leaders of the Cuban Revolution are inheriting key posts and strategic positions in the political power structure controlled by the Castro family.

For example, Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart, eldest child of the late Fidel Castro, is scientific advisor to his uncle, General Raúl Castro. The general’s daughter, Mariela Castro Espín, is president of the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) and a deputy in the National Assembly of People’s Power, the country’s unicameral parliament and supreme body of state power.

Alejandro Castro Espín, youngest child of Raúl Castro, is an advisor to the National Commission for Defense and National Security.

Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja — former son-in-law of Raúl Castro and father of two of the general’s grandchildren — is CEO of the Business Administration Group and head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Department V.

Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz — the son of Isidoro Malmierca Peoli, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs — is the Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment in Cuba.

Ernesto Daniel Plasencia — son of Colonel Santiago Plasencia and close friend of Raúl Castro — is a diplomat who recently concluded a stint as the Cuban ambassador to Qatar.

Leopoldo Cintra González — son of Army General and Revolutionary Armed Forces Minister Leopoldo Cintras Frías — is the commercial vice-president of the Habanos Corporation.

Listing every member of this fraternity would be impossible. However, the case of Rosales Aguirreurreta — daughter of General Ulises Rosales del Toro, vice-president of the Council of Ministers, founder of the Communist Party of Cuba and member of the Politburo — stands out not only for being the most recent example but also for being among the most significant.

It seemed at first that the Office of the Historian would be exempt from the hostile and ruthless takeover of Habanaguanex and Havana’s historic city center by the Cuban military.*

But the distrustful people who control the reigns of power in the country leave nothing to chance.

The talented and very hard-working Leal, who was recently awarded an honorary doctorate by Mexico’s Casa Lamm, held an enviable position which has now been turned over to the daughter of one of the dictatorship’s longtime generals. She is a successor with strong genetic ties to both the party and military.

At this point it is worth remembering that in December 1988 a trilateral accord was signed between Angola, South Africa and Cuba in which all parties agreed to accept Namibian independence, recognize South Africa, halt support to the UNITA rebels and pull Cuban troops out of Angola.

Three days later, General Rosales del Toro, a career military officer — one unsuited to his career — who was not convinced of the effectiveness of dialogue to achieve reliable results, took a proposal back to Cuba that called for negotiations with the United States and an end to years of hostility. Instead of receiving a response, he was ordered under pressure to preside over the 1989 military trial of General Arnaldo Ochoa.**

“Perla, who is also known by a pseudonym I shouldn’t repeat, studied in the former Soviet Union and spent time working there. She started off in the investment department and moved up the ladder until she evenutally became deputy director. When Leal fell ill, she automatically took over,” says a longtime restorer from the Office of the Historian who, for obvious reasons, prefers to remain anonymous.

“She appears to be a woman who is prepared. But she doesn’t travel alone. A few days ago, we had an emergency meeting in which we were introduced to a new twenty-something Perla: a civil engineer who is Perla’s daughter and General Rosales’ granddaughter. It seems, so we were told, that she is a very intelligent young woman who is emerging as another future head of this institution, which already practically levitates on a kind of forgetfulness,” says the worker in an observation that mixes jest and resignation.

*Translator’s note: The Office of the Historian is a governmental agency dedicated to the preservation of historic buildings in Old Havana, several of them now profitable tourist hotels. In 2016 the agency and its restored properties were taken over by Habaguanex, a hotel chain company operated by the Cuban military, in what some saw as a hostile land grab.

**Arnaldo T. Ochoa Sánchez was a prominent Cuban general who was executed by the government of Fidel Castro after being found guilty of a variety of crimes including drug smuggling and treason.

Urban Slums Report: The Case of Havana, by Mario Coyula – 2003

Click on image to open report. The report contains an excellent guide to housing in Havana and its terminology, for example use of the term "barbecue" for a makeshift platform built to gain floorspace.

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